Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 21: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has planned to hold the optional examinations, only in the main subjects, between August 15 and September 15 if a student was not satisfied with his or her marks as per the assessment criteria of the board and want to appear in examinations.
The CBSE gave the information in an additional affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court on Monday. It said the candidates would be able to register for the optional exam online. It said, however, that the result for those students, whose marks would be computed in accordance with the assessment policy, will be declared by July 31.
“Examinations shall be conducted only in the main subjects as and when the conditions are conducive for holding the examinations. However marks obtained by a candidate in this examination will be treated as final for those who opt to take the exam,” the CBSE said.
The Board told the apex court that a dispute resolution mechanism, timeline for the declaration of result and date for holding optional examination has been incorporated in its policy to compute marks for class 12 students after the 12th standard board exams were cancelled in wake of COVID-19. It also said the disputes regarding computation of results can be referred to a committee constituted by the CBSE.
The clarifications came after several students questioned the evaluation formula of the CBSE. As per the criteria, the marks of class 12 students would be declared on their performance in classes 10, 11 and pre-board exams.
The Uttar Pradesh Parents Association, Lucknow, had told the Supreme Court that the Board’s assessment policy for class 12 students which links the performance of the present 12th standard students with that of the past years’ performance of former students is “wholly arbitrary” and cannot be legally sustained.
The association, therefore, urged the court to scrap para 10 of the Scheme of Assessment Moderation proposed by CBSE. But the board defended the policy stating that “in the interest of fairness ad to ensure that the marks allocated are comparable and there is no adverse impact or undue gain for any student because of the methodology process of evaluations used by the individual schools.”
As per the criteria decided by the CBSE and approved by the apex court, class 10 and class 11 marks have a weightage of 30 per cent each. For class 12 marks, the weightage is 40 per cent. It said 30 per cent weightage marks of class 10 would be based on average theory component of best three performing subjects out of main five subjects will be taken.
The CBSE in its criteria also said the subject wise marks assessed by the school for 2020-2021 should be within a range of +/-5 marks obtained by the students in the school in the subject in the reference year.
“However, the overall average marks for the school assessed in 2020-2021, for all the subjects, should not exceed the overall average marks obtained by the school by 2 marks in the specific reference year. In case, data for a school for only two years’ is available then the best performance out of two years will be taken and in case, data is available for only one year, the same will be taken,” it said.
Meanwhile, amidst the decreasing trend of COVID-19 across the country, several state and union territory (UT) governments have reopened schools. However, many of them are still planning to reopen schools and will make a decision regarding it post reviewing the COVID-19 situation in India in July. However, for a nationwide re-opening of education institutes, opinion is being taken by the Centre from states and UTs currently.
The centre and most of the states also laid the emphasis on the vaccination of teachers and other staff attached to educational institutions. The decision on holding classes will not be taken until the situation is better. The main purpose of reopening is to speed up the process of admission and pending examination. This means students will not be asked to attend schools and colleges until the risk of a possible third wave is completely clear.
In UP, the state education department spokesman said the schools could re-open in Uttar Pradesh from July 1 but the students would not be called to school right now. Only teachers would come and take classes from school.
Bihar may also re-open schools from June 1 onwards. Its Education Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said if Covid cases were controlled, both the state government and education department were in favour of opening schools from July. Institutes of higher education would open first in Bihar, then middle school and primary schools would be opened.
In Madhya Pradesh, the process of admission has started. However, Its Education Minister Inder Singh Parmar has said that a collective decision regarding reopening is yet to be taken.
The Telangana government on Thursday announced that all schools, colleges and other educational institutions can reopen in the state from July 1.
